


On the first day of Hansmas

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Boxes 'Verse [3]
Category: The Hunger Games
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-14
Updated: 2013-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> There was only ever one Victor of the Hunger Games, and his name was Coriolanus Snow… but now the Games have been over for Twelve years and victory, it seems, can be found in the smallest of things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the first day of Hansmas

**Author's Note:**

>  This is dedicated to Trovia, whom I completely blame for my descent in the world of Hunger Games fic.  
> (Though let’s be real, finding a fellow Finnick/Haymitch shipper was too good an occasion to pass up anyway.)

Haymitch’s hand shivers as he closes the door on Noah’s sugar-fueled excitement, fingers clenching around the door handle hard enough to hurt.

With a sigh, he rests his head against the wood -polished by years of wind and sand beating against it -breathes in and out, slow and purposeful because he refuses to let things become any worse.

The room smells of melting wax and pumpkin pie, with just a hint left of the potato pancakes they had for dinner -the candy canes, still in their wrappers, don’t smell quite as strong though.  
Haymitch turns around, looks at the state of his living room. In front of the door, on the far left of the wall, Johanna’s pine tree is crowned with garlands of argyle pearls sewn together -there’s a star at the top, crooked and rusted as if molten off then abruptly thrown into cold water… or snow.

 

The altar, too, is a memento.

It sits between the two windows, separated from the pine tree by a couple of chairs. There are waves clumsily carved in the back of it… it’s an altar for the dead, mostly, four candles burning in front of portraits Peeta painted -the right hand corner is clearer than the rest of it, seven years of feverish sobriety wearing the varnish out… and then, in the second window, Hansmas candles.  
Haymitch only put up thirteen of them, one for each District, even though the tradition around here is to put one out for the Capitol, too. There are ways in which he'll always be a stranger in Four.

With a sigh, Haymitch looks away from the window, fixes his gaze on the crimson crown of Hansmas flowers above the fireplace, and his mind immediately conjures the image of Finnick bringing them over with the widest grin Haymitch has ever seen on his face -his stomach clench, his breathing catches… Haymitch hurries to the window.

He doesn’t even notice he’s running the fingers of his left hand along the edge of his altar until he has to turn around to pick a knife when the door opens without warning.

 

 _Sorry_ , Finnick’s face announces, and Haymitch blows some air through his nose, sets his article of -dirty- cutlery back on the table and shakes his head.

“At least you had the good sense to stay at the door.”

 

Finnick’s smirk is fatalistic, accustomed to Haymitch’s reaction to being startled -it is, after all,  _more_  dangerous to wake him up now than it was when he used to be drunk all the time- but he doesn’t waste time in stepping inside, shedding snow at the door like a dog shaking water out of its fur before he signs:

 

 _I wanted to make sure you were okay. You looked stressed._  A pause.  _More than usual, that is_.

 

Haymitch’s hand goes to his altar again, picking at the wood where imprints of his nails are starting to show, and he shrugs.

 

“I’ve been worse,” he says, because he has, and he knows there’s no point in trying to tell Finnick he’s fine anyway. “Stop fussing, or Mason will keep saying we’re being domestic.”

 

Which, for the record, they are not.

If bickering and arguing about everything counted as domestic, Haymitch would be domestic with his  _geese_  and the birds are as much of an emotional crutch as the altar is -certainly not  _friends_.

If they were, Haymitch would at least haven given them names, or started using those Noah found for them.

Finnick’s answer starts with a too-wide shrug, a twist of lips, his eyes settling on his plate --near the window so he would hear the ocean.

 

 _I don’t exactly mind,_  he signs after a while, eyes staring straight as Haymitch’s.

“I’m serious, Odair,” Haymitch says, ignoring the frown of displeasure his words pull onto Finnick’s face.

 _So am I_ , the other replies, the words ending in an irritated flick of wrist, a click of tongue.

 

There’s something in his face that reminds Haymitch of his pre-Games interviews.

He looked decided then, determined to reach the goal he’d set for himself, only last time he was aiming so much _higher_ … Haymitch feels his lips press together, his fingers ball into fists.

 

“Don’t, he warns.”

 

_Don’t._

Don’t tell these things to someone like him -don’t offer him a life he’ll never be able to live.

 

Finnick takes a step forward and Haymitch can’t help his own step back -curses himself when the back of his leg hits the altar, but still grabs hold of the wood with his right hand, thumb brushing against the three spirals his mother carved there when he started bending.

Finnick stops short.

 

 _If you tell me you don’t want this,_  he signs with firm gestures,  _I won’t believe you. I’ve seen the way you look at me… and I know you’ve seen the way  I look at you._

 

Once, very long ago, Haymitch looked into Coriolanus Snow’s eyes as he accepted a crown made of golden iron… since then, he has learned how dangerous such a simple gesture can be, and he almost looks away from Finnick -would, too, if he weren’t… well. If he weren’t right.

It’s as good an admission as Finnick is ever going to get and Haymitch knows he knows it, which is why he doesn’t bother waiting to ask:

 

“What’s the point, though?”

 

For the briefest of moment, Finnick looks puzzled.

That’s honestly quite a feat, one Haymitch might even feel proud about one day… but evidently, it’s not enough to cut the conversation short, as Finnick scowls.

It looks as if he’s going to get angry, or annoyed, but he breathes deep instead -Haymitch can feel the air sliding into his lungs- and signs:

 

 _Did Johanna tell you she and Annie were trying to work on her triggers?_  Haymitch shakes his head -Johanna was always more Finnick’s friend than his.  _Well they are. When I asked why, she said she was tired of feeling like she’s still losing the Games._

 

This time, when Finnick steps closer, Haymitch doesn’t move -and not just because he has no room to do so… it’s because he knows.

There was only ever one Victor in the Hunger Games and his name was Coriolanus Snow.

All the others, survivors or not, were only Tributes, if that -as Tributes, at least, they were fed and given a small fallacy of respect.

And Haymitch knows, he  _knows_  he’s never stopped losing, he doesn’t need Johanna to spell it out for him.

He knows because he still sleeps with the lights on and a knife in his hand, he knows because you could ask him how long until the next Reaping and he’d tell you the exact number of days, of hours. He knows because seven years ago the varnish on his altar was perfect, but one night Annie had an episode when Noah thought Haymitch was dead and wouldn’t stop crying even two hours after Haymitch woke up.

Haymitch knows he’s still losing because he  _wants_  to enjoy this so badly but he simply can’t-because his stomach twists with fear every second of their Hansmas dinners and hollows out in longing the  _minute_  everyone is out.

Haymitch has known he was losing for a long time, has felt like this almost all his life, and he must be more of a bullhead than he thought because despite all of this, despite all the ways his previous decisions proved disastrous, he’s still alive.

But he’s not living. Not really.

 

Finnick rounds the dining table, positions himself so he’s facing Haymitch but leaving enough of an escape route to be relatively non-threatening -Haymitch is acutely aware of where the knife stands, plans the shortest route to his bending fans before he can even think of any other solution, but doesn’t move.

He could.

But he doesn’t.

 

“I’m tired of feeling like I’m losing too,” Finnick says, choking over the words, his voice so strained it barely sounds like him anymore.

 

(The mutts cut through his throat like butter that day, and Katniss did what she could but she’s no healer, and even the best surgeons in the world have limits as to how well they can repair messy cauterization.

And on the whole, Finnick is lucky to be alive and walking, let alone being able to speak a couple of words a day. Haymitch doesn't complain.)

 

Finnick is so close now, that Haymitch would be able to smell the salt on his skin even without airbending, close enough that Haymitch can see every crack in the skin of his lips -salt-chapped, of course.

For a while they just  _look_  at each other, the sound of rushing blood mingling with that of the wind and ocean in Haymitch’s ears, until Finnick says:

 

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

 

Haymitch watches him lean in, tells himself he should leave, tells himself he’ll dodge, he’ll do what’s right, spare Finnick the burden of Haymitch’s issues… but whether through too little selflessness or too much desire, Haymitch does none of that.

 

He closes his eyes instead, and breathes in harshly when Finnick’s lips touch his, grips the wood of his altar with one hand while the other flies to Finnick’s wrist, still settled against the latter’s hip.

Finnick tenses and Haymitch takes his hand back like he’s been burned, shoves his fist inside his pants pocket, tries to stand as still as possible.

 

Haymitch’s world tends to narrow down when people touch him -shifts to focus on the hand, elbow, thigh against him, burning through fabric- but this is different.

The last time Haymitch willingly engaged in skin-to-skin contact, he was sixteen and holding Maysilee Donner’s hand… the rest is all a blur of people moving him from one spot to the next, painful memories mingling together in the remnant of a drunken haze he maintained for over twenty-five years -kissing Finnick is like lighting a candle in the middle of a very, very dark night.

All of a sudden, it’s as if the rest of Haymitch’s body ceases to matter, as if all his senses could only process chapped lips against his, the soft bump of a nose on his skin, the tickle of air against his upper lip when Finnick breathes… his fingers grip the altar harder, his breathing quickens, his whole body feels like it’s been dumped into a very hot bath… and then, Finnick has to breathe.

 

Haymitch didn’t realize he’d stopped breathing as well, not until he felt air rushing into his lungs hard enough to hurt.

Finnick’s smile is so incongruously bashful though, so strangely teen-like in the embarrassed way he looks away and bites his lips… he’s transforming into an entirely different person right before Haymitch’s eyes, and it would be a lot more frightening if Haymitch didn’t _feel_ like an entirely different person, too.

 

In a day -an hour, a minute- he will grit his teeth against the fear he knows will come, but for now… for now, he looks at Finnick, and he smiles.

 

For now, he’s going to enjoy the feeling that he's finally winning.


End file.
